USA > California > Placer County > History of Placer county, California > Part 51
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In the year 1880 the gross receipts of the Hidden Treasure Mine were $114,168, of which there were paid for wages (largely to the owners themselves, who work in the mine), 846,564; contingent expenses, $10,358; dividends, 857,240.
The title to the ground is a patent from the Gov- ernment of the United States, the present owners be- ing William Cameron, M. H. Power, Harold T. Power, Henry M. Power, H. K. Develey, E. R. Guilford, R. M. Sparks, J. B. Harden, A. G. Fuller, L. P. Burn- ham, Thomas Reese, William Christy, Joshua W. Eggleston, Peter N. Juergensen, J. W. Byrd, and Lewis Ryder.
As stated in the foregoing, the gravel channel now being worked is what is called the "white quartz," while the blue gravel, in contradistinction, is called the " black channel." A supposed branch or tributary of the blue channel that cuts the Mountain Gate, lies to the northeast, at a greater depth-some 80 to 100 feet. At other localities the black channel has proven exceedingly rich, and there is no reason why the portion included in the Hidden Treasure patent should prove an exception. In the ground worked the richest paying stratum has been found noar and in the bed-rock, which is black slate stand-
221
MINING LAWS.
ing on edge, laminated, and in many places highly charged with large, brilliant cubes of iron sulphurets. At intervals there occur veins, a foot or two feet wide, of a soft material-white and chalky-which the miners designate "gouge," but which are probably porphyritic in character, and will ultimately be found to carry in places gold-bearing quartz. There are, also, at intervals, found between the laminations, strata of slate of a whitish color, upon which are imprinted beautiful dendrites.
MICHAEL HAROLD POWER,
One of Placer's prominent and successful mining men, was born in County Waterford, Ireland, September 29, 1829, his father being a gentleman of wealth, and the family among the first in social standing in the county. Ilis uncle, Joseph Power, served with dis- tinction through the Peninsular War, and two of his brothers now hold commissions in the British army. One of these, Lieut. Matthew Power, has for the past eighteen years been Chief of Police of Worcester, England, a position of high trust and honor. Mr. Power received a collegiate education, and, after leaving college, entered the law office of his brother, Edmund Power, from which he was appointed Clerk to the Crown for the District of Waterford, in which office he remained until his departure for America.
In 1847, before reaching his majority, he emi- grated to New York, and there for several years was engaged in business, but in consequence of ill-health removed to California, where he arrived in July, 1854, going to Iowa Hill, in Placer County. There he engaged in mining for a few months, and then changed his location to Damascus and purchased an interest in the Mountain Tunnel Mine, which was subsequently consolidated with the Golden Gate Mine under the name of the Mountain Gate Min- ing Company. There he worked with varying success for nearly twenty years, when he, in com- pany with others, crossed the ridge and prospected the mine known as the " Hidden Treasure Mining Company," of which Mr. Power has been Superin - tendent for a number of years. He has been very successful in mining pursuits and has amassed a co n- petence.
No more popular man, social, affable, public-spirited gentleman can be found than M. If. Power, whose pleasant and hospitable home at Sunny Sonth is so well known to all the people of the " Divide." Polit- ically he is a staunch Republican, having entered political life as a Douglas Democrat, but upon the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion his love for his adopted land impelled him to act with the Republican party as the direct and unequivocal friend of the Union. As a Republican, he helped to organize one of the first Union Leagues of the State, and was made its President. In 1867 he was elected Supervisor, one of the most important and responsible positions in the county, and in 1869 was elected as
a representative of Placer in the Assembly. In 1873 he was nominated by his party for the Senate, but was defeated by a combination of Democrats and Republicans styling itself the Independent party, but commonly known as "Dolly Vardens," the majority for his opponent, Dr. Martin, being only thirty-five. Since then he has been repeatedly solic- ited to again enter the political arena, but has inva- riably refused.
Mr. Power was married June 1, 1856, in San Fran- cisco, to Miss Isaline M. Keysner Develey, and now has two sons and one daughter. This happy couple, on the 1st of June, 1881, celebrated their silver wedding anniversary, and with every hope which health and contentment inspire look forward in con- fidence to the fiftieth anniversary of their married life and the celebration of their golden wedding. The home of Mr. Power bears the romantic name of Sunny South, being on the sunny southern slope of the great gold-hearing ridge wherein are the Mountain Gate and Hidden Treasure Mines, but his post-office address is Michigan Bluff.
OTHER MINES.
The next development on main blue gravel chan- nel is eight miles eastward, at the Whiskey Hill Mine, fronting on Secret Canon, and with an elevation of about 1,500 feet greater than at the Mountain Gate. The blue gravel at Whiskey Hill is of the same charac- ter as that at Damascus, in the Mountain Gate, there- fore believed to be a continuation of the channel, though somewhat richer in gold. This mine was recently opened, but will be in full working order in the summer of 1882.
The Bob Lewis and the Dam claims have been working successfully for a number of years on what now proves to be tributaries to the main blue gravel channel.
The Hidden Treasure is a mine located on a cross ridge running south from the main ridge. This mine is worked very profitably, drifting on the extension of the quartz gravel channel running south from the Mountain Gate, and is paying dividends amounting to from 840,000 to $50,000 per annum.
THE BLUE GRAVEL CHANNEL.
Mr. Ilobson, after having made a personal exami- nation of all the developments, prospects, tunnels, shaft and inclines now in operation, and the rim rock where exposed on the surface, coupled with the course of rim roek where exposed at Whiskey Ilill workings, Damaseus in Mountain Gate, Saccor Flat and the Watts Mine, and the old workings of Roach Ilill mines down to where the blue gravel channel was cut away in places, by the later flow of gravel, which flowed from the direction of Gold Run, forming the gravel banks of the hydraulic mines of Independ- ence and part of Roach Hill, Bird's Flat and Wis- consin 1lill, and the formation of the present canons; and these facts confirmed by the altitudes of bottom of blue gravel channel where exposed, he is con-
222
HISTORY OF PLACER COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
vinced of the fact that the flow of the ancient stream has been to the west, entering the ridge at the Union Mine near Secret House, and passing through the entire length of that mine and through the Spartan ground into the Whiskey ITill Mine; thence through the Macedon and New Basel and Golden Fleece Mines; thence into and through the whole length of Alameda Consolidated Mine; thence through Cape Horn Mine; thenee through the Forks llouse, Gillespie and Bob Lewis Mines; thence through the Mountain Gate Mine; thence through Coker Mine and West Damascus Consolidated Placer Mine, where it has cut across an extensive deposit of quartz gravel; thence west.
The appearance of the channel of blue gravel, as described by Mr. Hobson, is that of the bed of a stream, but an open river 600 feet in width, with a fall of near 200 feet per mile could not deposit gravel, sand and clay so uniformly on smooth bed rock so steeply inclined. The stream, more prob- ably, was one of ice.
VARIOU'S FORMATIONS AND THEORIES.
The surveys of Mr. Hobson show various forma- tions in different eras of time. Conspicuous among these are the white quartz channel and the blue gravel channel, the white quartz channel being the oldest, as shown in the Damascus ridge which has been thoroughly explored by the Mountain Gate, Ilidden Treasure and Bob Lewis Mines. The white quartz channel there runs north and south, with a fall to the south. and has been cut by the blue gravel channel running east and west with a fall to the west. The old white quartz channel had no connection with the blue gravel. or " Dead Blue River."
The Canada Hill Channel, which appears in Town- ship 15 north, range 13 east, by the United States land surveys from Mount Diablo base and meridian, flowed to the east and crossed Sailor Canon. " This channel," says Mr. Hobson, is composed of angular white quartz, quartzite and feldspathie rocks, gravel and sand. The gold is also rough and but little water-worn. The pay gravel is about four feet in depth, lying on metamorphic slate. Overlying the pay gravel is a stratum of cemented white, siliceous sediment resembling chalk; overlying the chalk, as it is commonly called, is a stratum of brown shale, or lignite, and filling and covering the eastern channel is the usual gray, cemented, voleanie matter. My observations have led me to believe that the Canada Ilill Channel is the oldest on the ridge, geologically.
There also appears to have been at least four different periods in the formation of the ancient streams found west of Secret Canon. First we find the white quartz deposits on the north side of the ridge along Golden Fleece and llog's-back Consoli- dated, and the north and south channel in Mountain Gate and Hidden Treasure Mines, the north and
sonth channel developed by Mountain Chief shaft, West Damascus shaft and its rims exposed at surface, all of which, judging from the similarity of their formation, appear to have been formed during one period. The next appears to have been a volcanic period, when all the above streams were filled with volcanic mud. Next we find what is called the Blue Channel, which flowed West and crossed the white quartz deposits, cutting them away and eroding the underlying rock to the depth of eighty feet. Follow- ing this comes another flow of volcanic mud, next comes the period during which flowed the great stream forming the immense deposits of small mixed gravel, covering the old blue channel at Gold Run and north of that place, and south forming the hydraulie banks of Independence Hill. Iowa Itill and Wisconsin Hill, also covering the blue, and last a flow of material forming the pipe-clay and overlying red earth.
The lines of demarkation showing the deposits of different periods are to be seen quite well-defined in Mountain Gate Mine, West Damaseus shaft and side hill adjacent to that mine, also between Independ- ence and Roach Hills, Homeward Bound, Watts, Morning Star and Wisconsin Hill Mines, showing plainly where the different deposits were eroded away and overlap.
Several white quartz channels are shown, running sontherly and easterly, and of very great difference of altitude. The most easterly is that of Canada Hill, with an elevation on the west of 6,205 feet and on the cast of 5,640 feet. Westward eleven miles. in the Bear Hunter, the elevation is 4,770 feet, and seven miles further west is the Mountain Gate at an elevation of 3,91 t feet, and at lowa Hill, eight miles west of the latter. the elevation is 2,642 feet. The blue gravel is found in the various mines in the same varying elevations, always with a westward trend, showing a fall, if a continuous stream ever existed, of 2.128 feet in fifteen miles, a physical feature of which we have no comparison at present in existence, and of which we can form no conception, showing conclusively, taking into consideration the magnitude of the channel, the power required to move bowlders of many tons weight and the most minute particles to deposit in the same localities, that the great .. Dead Blue River " as an open, unobstructed stream never flowed as theorists have surmised.
Perhaps the fineness of the gold and accompanying rocks found in the different placers and strata may aid in tracing the sources of the drift. The course of the white quartz channel through the Mountain Gate and Hidden Treasure Mines of the Damaseus ridge would carry it over the group of quartz lodes about the mouth of Humbug Canon, the Poole, Dorer, Boss and others, and possibly the ancient glacier may from them have obtained its quartz and gold, thus accounting for the prevalence of an unusual number of bowlders containing gold in those mines. The gold of the white quartz channel is
223
MINING LAWS.
850 fine, while that of the intruding blue channel is 930 fine; this gravel coming from the East, and having a predominance of slate and other rock, not quartz.
The quartz veins of Auburn and Ophir Districts carry gold worth from 814.00 to $17.50 an ounce, which very nearly corresponds with the value of the gold found in the placers of the various ravines in the same districts. The gold of Auburn, Secret, Miner's and other ravines of western Placer, cover- ing many square miles of area, certainly never came from the white quartz channel of the high Sierra, nor from any Dead Blue River.
A HYDRAULIC MINE.
The Independence Hill Mine, as described by Mr. Hobson, lies on the extreme west end of Roach Hill ridge, and tails into the North Fork of the American River, through the Independence Hill, Union, and Blue Wing Canons. The mine is rigged up to work on a large scale, using 500 inches of water. The rig consists of 2,000 feet of 16-inch iron pipe, one No. 4 giant nozzle, 800 feet of 40-inch flume, with improved iron riffles, two large under- currents, also paved with iron riffles, mining tools, and tools for making iron pipe, blacksmith shop, melting room and assay office, powder-magazine, etc.
This mine contains about fifty acres of ground, twenty-five of which have been washed off. Nine acres of this amount was washed off in a small way, during a period of sixteen years; and since rigged to wash on a large scale, sixteen acres was washed off in 256 days, working twenty-four hours a day, using 500 inches of water under a pressure of 350 feet. Under this work the following are the results, as obtained from the books of the Superintendent :-
Total number of working days, using 500 inches of water twenty-four hours, 256. Ground washed off sixteen acres, eight acres averaging in depth, thirty feet; eight acres averaging in depth, seventy- five feet.
Total amount of gold produced $62,003.20 Total expense of mining 29,078.82
Total net profit from working sixteen acres of ground
32,924.38
An average gross yield per acre of. $3,878.19
Gross yield per day 242.20
Expenses of mining, as follows :-
Five hundred inches of water, twenty-four hours $ 45.00
Ten miners at $2.50 and $3.00 per day 27.00
Fuel and lights 5.00
Powder and incidental supplies 31.60
Superintendence 5.00
Daily expenses $113.60 Leaving a net profit of $128.60, for each day.
The ground washed off varied in gross yield of gold per acre, according to the depth of ground, viz .: Eight acres washed off produced $25,498.60,
an average of 83,187.32 per acre, the gravel having an average depth of thirty feet; four acres next washed off, the gravel averaging ninety feet deep, and the gold produced amounted to $20,806.56, an average yield of 85,201.64 per acre; and the last run closed having washed off four acres, producing gold amounting to $15,700, an average yield per acre of $3,925, the gravel having a depth of sixty feet. The remaining twenty-five acres have an average depth of' thirty feet.
Other hydraulic mines yield from $3,000 to $5,000 per acre, and the blue gravel stratum, from twenty to thirty feet in depth, where found under hydraulic gravel in the vicinity of Iowa Hill, yields $12,000 per acre, making such ground, where it is all hydraulicked, yield from $15,000 to $17,000 per acre. The average working season is about 120 days, being governed by the supply of water in the reservoirs and upper streams.
Water is furnished at the mines at nine cents per inch for twenty-four hours, from ditches owned by Mrs. Adelia Hill, being brought from a reservoir near the head of Shirt-tail Canon. The Iowa Hill Canal Company's ditch, with branches aggregating forty miles in length, also conveys water to the various mines in the vicinity. The cost of running tunnels, by which nearly all the mines are opened, varies from $3.50 to $8.00 per lineal foot, the length of tunnel through the rim-rock being from 500 to 2,000 feet. In a few of the mines, where opened at the lower end of the channel, the incline of the bed- rock is such that no tunnel is required, a slight cutting and grading being sufficient for the sluices.
THIE DIVIDE IN 1856.
The County Surveyor in 1856, Mr. Thomas A. Young, in his report to the Surveyor-General of Cali- fornia, includes the following information on mining affairs :-
" We have somewhere in the vicinity of 400 miles of canals now constructed, and valued at 8400,000, the cost being four times that sum. The average price of water sold to miners is fifty cents per inch, the measurement being through an aperture one inch, sometimes two inches broad, under a pressure of four inches of water. [The price of water from the first ditches in the county was $1.00 an inch, without any pressure allowed, but the modern method of meas- surement is through a horizontal aperture two inches in width under a pressure of six inches, or through an inch square aperture under a pressure of six inches from the top of the hole, equal to about two and one-third cubic feet, or thirty-six gallons per minute. ED.
"There are four quartz mills in successful opera- tion in this county. One of them is situated at Grand Ledge on llumbug Canon, eight miles east of Jowa llill. It has a sixty-horse-power engine, work- ing twenty-four stamps, and capable of crushing fifty tons of quartz in twenty-four hours. This mill
224
HISTORY OF PLACER COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
is under the management of Dr. McMurtry, one of the most experienced quartz miners in the State. The quartz mill of Watson & Co., situated at Sarahs- ville, four miles east of Yankee Jim's, is paying handsomely.
" As for the richness and extent of its hydraulic and tunnel mines, Placer, I think, is excelled by no county in the State. The mines in many places are washing away the banks of gravel to a depth of sev- enty feet. The ground on which the town of Michi- igan Bluff is located will probably, in the course of four or five years be entirely washed away. The depth from the surface to the bed-rock is 40 to 80 feet.
The estimated length of the different tunnels run for mining purposes in this county is twenty-eight miles; average size, five feet wide, six feet high; estimated cost of construction, at $9.00 per foot, $1,330,560.
There has been many deep shafts sunk in this county, requiring a very large expenditure of money. One of them was sunk by a San Francisco and Stockton Mining Company, on Roach Hill, two miles east of lowa Ilill. The shaft is three feet wide by nine in length, and 197 feet in depth; is curbed from top to bottom with plank, having a partition of plank in the middle, thus forming two shafts. The cost of lumber alone was $1,500; a twelve-horse-power engine was used in its construction, raising gravel and water; the cost of engine and boiler delivered on the ground was $3,000; the average price of labor paid for constructing the shaft was $5.00 per day- time, eight months; total cost, $17,000. The San Francisco Company found gravel rich with gold at the bottom of their shaft. and after having tunneled some distance, and becoming satisfied that the rich deposit was extensive, they contracted with Edward P. Steen, of San Francisco, to run with his " tunnel borer" a tunnel 500 feet long and six feet in dia- meter, to strike the bottom of the shaft to drain water from their mining ground. The amount of the contracts is $7,890. If the contract is completed before the 28th of January next, a bonus of $2,700 is to be paid, thus making the expense of the company on the completion of the tunnel, 827,590. I consider the " tunnel-borer " the most useful of all inventions for the working of the mines, and as it will be in operation in a few days at Roach Ifill, 1 think it not inappropriate to describe it.
" This machine was invented (except the eutters), and built in San Francisco by Edward P. Steen. It consists of two machines-one for cutting the tunnel, which feeds itself in as fast it euts, and the driving machine, which is erected outside, and is stationary. The cutting machine consists of a strong iron frame, mounted on wheels, which are conical, and run on the sides of the bottom of the tunnel. Bolted to this frame is an engine, twelve inches bore by sixteen inches stroke, the piston of which is connected with two bell cranks, hung by centers to a wheel or face plate, which is moved around from a half to one inch
at each stroke of the piston, according to the hard- ness of the rock. The eutters-four in number-are round plates of steel, ten inches in diameter, by five- eighths of an inch thick, hung on small shafts, which run in boxes attached to the bell cranks at an angle of forty-five degrees to the face plate. When the piston moves it gives a half circular motion to the bell erank and cutters, and when the latter are in contact with the rocks, causes them to rotate on their axes, and thus cuts the rock with the least wear or friction. The tunnel it cuts is six feet in diameter.
"The driving apparatus consists of a steam boiler engine and pump for compressing air; the compressed air is conducted any distance through rubber hose to the cutting machine and applied to the engine, in which it works as steam. The air is exhausted in the tunnel, keeping it well ventilated. The machine has cut a tunnel in Telegraph Ilill, San Francisco, six feet in diameter, from twelve to sixteen inches, in an hour, and requires about two and a half eords of wood per day of twenty-four hours. Eight men can run the machine night and day-two engineers and two working men at a time. The rock, ete., is drawn ont under the machine, and run out the usual way.
" It is estimated that Placer County has produced from its mines during the past year gold to the value of 86,000,000, and expended $3,000,000 for supplies."
MINING DITCHIES.
The following are the names, miles in length of main canal and branches, and assessed valuation in the years 1856 and '57.
In 1855 the number reported was twenty-nine, assessed at $375,000; in 1856, the number was twen- ty-four, assessed at $399,100; and in 1857, the num- ber was thirty-four, assessed at 8325,000-a great falling off in value the last year, although an increase in number :-
Names.
Len :th in miles ..
1:56. Assessed valuation .
1857. Assessed valuation.
American River W. and M. Co ..
36
$130,000 $100,000
Auburn and Bear River W. Co.
200
130,000
75,000
El Dorado W. Co.
25,000
30,000
Gold Hill and Bear River Co.
82
20,000
16,000
Yankee Jim's Union Co ..
15
25,600
15,000
Todd's Valley W. Co.
12
14,000
17,000
Sarahsville and T. Val Co.
11
5,000
10,000
Independent Ditch Co ..
S
5,000
7,000
Yankee .Jim's Miners' Ditch .
15
6,000
5,000
Dutch Flat Water Co . .
15
5,400
Ferguson's Ditch
5
5,000
4,000
Whiskey Digging Ditch.
13
2,500
3,000
North Sea Ditch Co.
8
2,800
Elm Slide Ditch Co.
1,000
3,000
Hose's Ditch .
5,000
2,000
Indiana W. Co
6,500
2,000
Hill's Ditch.
25
6,000
5,000
Oak Cottage Ditch.
5
800
Buffalo Ditch.
500
Bird's Valley Ditch.
400
Denniug's Ditch
700
Pugh Ditch . .
3
500
Denton's Ravine Ditch.
1
100
Eureka Ditch ..
1
400
Underwood's Ditch
1
100
Eureka Ditch Co.
6
500
3,000
Lowry Ditch.
5
500
6,000
McKee's Ditch.
1
900
North Shirt Tail Ditch.
5,500
Grizzly Ditch
HIDDEN TREASURE MINE, SUNNY SOUTH, PLACER COUNTY, CAL (M.H POWER)
225
MINING LAWS.
CHAPTER XXXII.
MINING.
[CONTINUED. ]
Quartz Discoveries near Auburn-Rich Strikes-Pluck Rewarded by Luck-The Big Crevice - Dredging the River-The St. Patrick Mine-The Greene Mine-Rising Sun Mine-The Banker Mine-The Forest Hill Divide-Mining at Dutch Flat-Cedar Creek Mining Company-Mining Phrases- The "Glorious Days" of '49-The Miner's Lament-The Miner's Progress.
THE early history of gold mining, and sketches of many of the mines have been given in the preceding chapters, leaving those of modern fame to brief men- tion in this. So great is the interest, with many changes of names and proprietors, the sudden rise of property into prominence, yielding largely of the precious metal, creating a sensation in mining cir- cles then disappearing from publie notice, greatly complicates the story, and to attempt to particular- ize into absolute acenracy would be too tedious to be interesting, and cumber this volume to the neglect of other matters also important.
QUARTZ DISCOVERIES NEAR AUBURN.
No portion of the State is more elaborately veined with quartz ledges than the foot-bills of Placer County, and particularly the country embraced within the boundaries of the Auburn, Lone Star, and Ophir quartz districts, a region of about six miles in width by twelve in length. The surface mines of this locality were first worked in 1848 and subsequently yielded fabulous amounts of gold. Many quartz veins were discovered and mills erected, as reported in previous chapters. In 1865 this region attracted the renewed attention of prospectors, and many discoveries and locations were made, several of which were in after years extensively worked, and became noted objects of public attention. Among these were the Conrad, Peter Waller, North Star, Great Eastern, Vanderbilt, Tallman's, Bowlder, Wells, Poland, Taylor, Pacific, Mallett, St. Lawrence, and many others, all within a few miles of Auburn. Some assays made in April, 1866, by Mr. G. A. Tread well, a chemist and assayer, at Ophir, gave the following results :-
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